New products helping the environment

Plastic consumption is one of the biggest issues affecting the environment, and the beauty industry is a huge contributor to this problem.

Luckily some brands, like Lyonsleaf, which make their products from ingredients on their Somerset farm, have gone completely plastic free with new aluminium lids and they even offer refillable products!

Here's what Lyonsleaf founder Vicky Lyonsleaf has to say about her brand's plastic free stance...

"We've worked really hard to find materials that can be recycled and switched to using these, now are products are 100% recyclable, we've even switched to using paper packing tape.

"But as we made this journey we discovered things are not as simple as we thought. Having spoken with an environmental consultant we really started to think about Carbon. She told us that although plastic that ends up in the sea is very bad it is not the plastic that is creating the very imminent danger to the planet, it's the warming of the planet caused by emissions. Unfortunately every time you make anything you produce carbon and a paper bag usually has a bigger carbon footprint than a plastic bag, so it's not as cut and dried as you may think. We are now thinking about carbon as well and trying to make carbon reduction part of every decision we make.

"We have really good waste system now try to produce as little waste as possible when creating the products. The waste we do create is virtually all recycled, We are proud that almost nothing from the business goes to landfill. People don't realise that paper towels and cardboard in land fill rot down without the presence of oxygen and that creates methane (same as food waste) this is a huge contributor to global warming. So now, all our paper towels from cleaning go to a food waste collection to be composted. We think small changes like that can make a huge difference.

"We have 22w of solar panels at our farm, so we are reducing emissions there. We are pleased our water free products come in smaller pots, so less packaging overall, less carbon created shipping them around and because are products are multi-taskers people can replace several product with one small jar that lasts along time. We are thinking of getting a cardboard shredder so we can reuse cardboard packaging that comes in to use, shred it and use it as void fill instead of buying in cornstarch chips, which are biodegradable, but they have a carbon footprint of their own, and all that corn has to be grown probably in an agricultural mono culture which will be destroying habitat. So reusing a waste product to avoid buying something new is a great way of working."

Check out their products on www.lovelula.com